Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: WWII

  • A WWII artist remembered

    Luciano FiumeCanzo, Italy When Hitler launched his invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, he prevailed on his ally Benito Mussolini to contribute soldiers to sustain his war effort. Three Italian divisions were sent initially and two more in 1942, integrated into the German army fighting in Ukraine and at one stage besieging Odessa. During…

  • Making radiation visible: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Godzilla

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   Gojira (Godzilla) poster. © Toho Company, 1954. Via Wikimedia. Fair use. “The theme of the film, from the beginning, was the terror of the bomb.”1 – Tomoyuki Tanaka, producer of Gojira (Godzilla)   The Third Reich surrendered to the Allies in early May 1945. This did not yet end World…

  • Henry Miller

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Henry Miller. From the author’s personal collection. There are many eminent figures in the worlds of medicine and neurology, most of them distinguished by their clinical skill, academic prowess, scientific originality, or success in establishing major institutes of teaching and research. Henry Miller (1913–1976), though not a laboratory investigator, was…

  • Long before Pearl Harbor, an entire hospital was sent to help England in World War II

    Edward TaborBethesda, MD, United States Harvard University President James B. Conant had the idea of sending a fully staffed hospital to England to help the British in their war with Germany in 1939, more than two years before the US entered the war. It became a collaboration between Harvard University and the American Red Cross.…

  • Fascist Italy: The Battle for Births

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   Babies in a basket. Photo by Harris & Ewing, May 1923. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. “It’s up to you to create a generation of soldiers and pioneers for the defense of the empire.” – Benito Mussolini, to the women of Italy1 “Women are a charming pastime…but…

  • Book review: Frank Pantridge MC

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Frank Pantridge is not a name that is widely known. His most important legacy is the design of the portable defibrillator, a device that has saved countless lives. In this biography, Cecil Lowry tells the story of this remarkable doctor from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Pantridge survived as a prisoner of…

  • The Warsaw ghetto hunger study

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   A photo documenting clinical research on hunger performed by a group of Jewish doctors in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. From Emil Apfelbaum (red.)… 1942, American Joint Distribution Committee. a photo between pages 20 and 21. Via Wikimedia. “The organism which is destroyed by prolonged hunger is like a candle…

  • Malaria in defeat and victory

    Richard J. E. Brown Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom   Lab work in progress at the Royal Navy School of Malaria and Hygiene, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 1944. IWM Non-Commercial Licence © IWM A 28167. A few weeks ago, in the reading room of the National Archives in London, I came across the war diary of a…

  • The Schoolhouse Lab

    Edward McSweeganKingston, Rhode Island, United States “Black measles” was a common name for spotted fever, which regularly killed people in the western United States. Symptoms included a spotty rash on the extremities, fever, chills, headache, and photophobia. No one knew what caused it. The first recorded case in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley was in 1873.1 Twenty-three…

  • A Cold War vaccine: Albert Sabin, Russia, and the oral polio vaccine

    James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Albert Sabin (second from left) and Mikhail Chumakov (third from left). Credit: Courtesy Hauck Center for the Albert B. Sabin Archives, Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions, University of Cincinnati Libraries. Fair Use. In the midst of the 2020 Covid–19 pandemic, when international…